It’s true – service delivery is just another urban legend It’s been called an urban legend – the story of a woman standing alongside Higginson Highway, Chatsworth, flagging down motorists and luring some to their deaths.
Whether this is just another tale passed down over generations to scare people, or whether there’s truth to the story, the name Highway Sheila is synonymous with Indian folklore.
The story is similar with all who have claimed to have seen her: an Indian woman, dressed in black, attempting to flag down passing vehicles, apparently hitching a ride.
Numerous deaths on the Higginson Highway have been blamed on Highway Sheila – people say she’s filling her quota of deaths. But other times it appears as if she is just looking for a lift home, or someone to talk to. One resident claims that he lent her his jacket when he gave her a lift home.
When he returned the next day for his jacket, the woman that answered the door said that the young lady that lived there died a few years before. When he visited the local cemetery to make sure, his jacket was draped over her tombstone. Another lady claims that she picked up a lady, fully clad in black, a few kilometres from Highway Sheila’s usual hotspot, who asked if she wanted to ‘go somewhere to have a drink or something’.
Whatever the true story is, Highway Sheila’s tale continues to be a talking point, terrifying many today. But surely Highway Sheila’s tale isn’t the only popular South African urban legend.
Isn’t there one closer to home? A ghost of a fallen ANC comrade, who’s turning in his grave at the sight of the state of affairs at Endumeni Municipality? Maybe service delivery is an urban legend itself – just think about it.
The word strikes fear in the hearts of politicians, so it has the scare factor. People are also talking about it all the time and some have even claimed to experience it, but it’s just another tale and there’s no conclusive proof of this. South Africa doesn’t need urban legends to scare anyone though – our politicians do that job very well themselves. When you have a premier that spends more than R53 000 on food, or a president that has rape charges against him, who needs to dig up legends of old?
At this rate, Highway Sheila and all the other souls that wander the earth need to start inhabiting the hallways of municipalities, ensuring that money is spent on what it should be and that the people get what they are promised. But most importantly they need to see that service delivery doesn’t become a thing of the past, only brought out to scare some poor soul into voting for you.